


Threads

by gimmefire



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-17
Updated: 2008-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimmefire/pseuds/gimmefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I wanted to tell you that I'm here for you, if you want to talk or-or anything."</i> Post Spa, a sympathetic Felipe goes to an impenetrable Kimi, hoping the two of them can bond over races lost. With Kimi, though, things are never that simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threads

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by [](http://tasyfa.livejournal.com/profile)[tasyfa](http://tasyfa.livejournal.com/).

_Spa, Sunday evening._

"Oh."

Not the most glorious of opening lines, but Felipe had been rather startled when the door swung open. "I didn't think you would be here."

Kimi stared blankly at him from inside his hotel room. "But you knocked on my door."

"I know that, I just thought you would be somewhere else."

"The bar?" Kimi offered, eyebrow quirking ever so slightly.

Felipe shifted uncomfortably, choosing not to acknowledge his team mate's comment. "I wanted to come over and see if you were okay."

Kimi shrugged. "I didn't get injured."

"You know I didn't mean that. Losing a race like that," Felipe murmured, looking down and fiddling with the zip on his jacket. "I know it's really frustrating and horrible, so—"

"Did Stefano tell you to come here?"

Felipe looked up sharply. "No!" he replied immediately, then shrugged one shoulder. "He said it might be a good idea, but I wanted to see you anyway." That felt like some sort of admission of guilt, and Kimi's gaze slid away. Felipe pressed on. "I wouldn't have come here so soon if I didn't care," he protested, dipping his head to try and catch those blue eyes again. "I wanted to tell you that I'm here for you, if you want to talk or-or anything."

"Is that it?" Kimi responded, glancing back into his room.

Felipe's shoulders sank. "Kimi..."

The Finn swung the door idly between his thumb and forefinger. "Don't feel obliged to come and see me. It doesn't matter to me."

Felipe began to look genuinely hurt. "What have I said to you?"

Kimi shrugged again. "Nothing in particular."

"I'm trying to be—" Felipe cut himself off suddenly, hurt expression fading in favour of anger. "Okay, for sure, you be yourself, be the Kimi that says what he says and fuck everybody else, when I'm only trying to be nice to you. I don't feel _obliged_ , whatever you think. I'm here because I want to be here." He faltered at that, a little rattled by his own words. Kimi's eyes returned to him, his impassive demeanour flickered away momentarily, but he said nothing. Felipe's frustration bubbled to the surface again. "Okay, you don't want me as a friend, I understand that. I try to offer you a bit of sympathy, and nothing. You go back into your room and be alone. Cry about it, if you even know how to."

He turned and began to walk back down the corridor towards his room, getting around ten steps away before he was halted by Kimi's voice.

"I'm not at the bar because there's alcohol in here."

Felipe looked back over his shoulder to see his team mate leaning against the doorframe, watching him. Then the Finn pushed himself upright and retreated into his room. The door remained open. Felipe waited where he was, wondering if this was really the best invitation he was going to get. After a while he raised his eyes to the heavens and turned back, heading for the open door.

 

Kimi was already back in his seat when Felipe closed the door behind him, low chair turned towards the vast, firmly closed sliding doors that led onto a drenched balcony and a miserably black night. The room was incredibly tidy, as though nothing had been touched since the cleaners had last visited. A room of that size with minimal clutter and furniture left it feeling inhospitable, like a showroom, and Felipe found himself not wanting to sit down anywhere in case it disturbed the organization of it all. He fiddled with his jacket zip again, casting his eyes around and feeling inexplicably unnerved. When his eyes returned to Kimi he hesitated in his tracks momentarily, wondering if the Finn had been sat there like that, alone in a stark room and looking out at nothing, since he'd gotten back from the circuit. Just as quickly he pushed the thought away.

As he approached, Kimi set down the bottle of vodka he'd been pouring and held the filled glass out towards Felipe, who mumbled his thanks and accepted the drink, bringing it to his lips and taking a sorely needed gulp.

The two of them remained silent, simply nursing their drinks and there in each other's company, for a good while. Felipe made a few weak attempts at conversation, though he was really just trying to fill the silence, unpleasant nerves still skritching at his brain. Kimi remained staring fixedly ahead, offering nothing.

"I know how you feel," Felipe murmured, watching what little he could see of Kimi's face for any sign of reaction. He was beginning to lose hope and patience. "To have the win so close and then to have it go away. It's happened to the both of us, so if you, i-if—"

His sentence was brought to a stuttering halt when Kimi's gaze swung sharply around to him. There wasn't quite the unnerving clarity usually found in those blue eyes; evidently Kimi had been at that vodka for some time, but the sudden attention was nonetheless rather startling. "Where did it happen to you?" the Finn asked.

Felipe opened his mouth, closed it, frowned in confusion. "You know where it happened," he murmured, suddenly more subdued.

Kimi pressed on. "Was it at Istanbul? Or Interlagos?"

"No, it was Budapest. _Droga_ , Kimi, I don't know what—"

"Then you don't know."

Felipe's eyes widened fractionally, sudden clarity striking through him. Kimi eventually looked away again and the Brazilian oddly felt as though he'd been released. He deflated visibly and looked down at his drink. "I'm sorry," he murmured softly.

Though he couldn't say that he'd seen vivid pain or anger in Kimi's eyes, it was palpable. The image of that gaze echoed though his mind and he felt a renewed rush of sympathy. Fuck, how could Kimi bear it? The memories of that wall lurching towards his Ferrari, the sound of baying McLaren fans filling his ears and that terribly lonely walk back to the pits, all churning in his mind and in the pit of his stomach...how could he bear being alone with that? Felipe felt his chest ache at the mere thought of it.

The two of them weren't alike, not at all. The so-laid-back-he's-horizontal, ice cool Finn, and the emotional, hot-blooded Brazilian; that was how they'd been painted in the media, personalities exaggerated to make a good story, but it wasn't entirely inaccurate. Kimi might sometimes give the impression that he didn't give a fuck about anything or anyone, whether things were going well or not, but Christ, he was still human. This had to hurt.

Tentatively Felipe came closer to his team mate, finishing his drink and setting the glass down on the floor. Kimi didn't appear to notice, still looking off into the distance. He only looked around when Felipe had been standing right beside him for several moments. He didn't say anything, didn't give away anything in his expression; Felipe hadn't truly expected him to, but just for once he wished he would have.

"I..." he began, faltered, fell silent with an averted gaze. He wanted to say something, actually had something to say, but _I want to be here for you_ now sounded stupid in his head. In the absence of words, Felipe turned to actions, and with those unsaid words in mind the Brazilian bent and wrapped his arms around Kimi's shoulders in an awkward hug. Unable to see the Finn's face, Felipe murmured, "You can just tell me to go away, if you want to." _Please don't,_ he added silently. When nothing was said, he tentatively rested his cheek against Kimi's back, tightening the hug briefly.

Felipe only stopped holding his breath when Kimi's head rocked back to rest on his shoulder. Encouraged – nay, delighted – by the small, unexpected gesture, the Brazilian murmured something that had been playing on his mind for some time. "I know that we're not going to be friends, not really. But I don't want us to be enemies."

Not quite prepared for whatever Kimi's reaction might be, Felipe straightened, arms sliding from around the other man. He gestured vaguely to the empty glass, thanked Kimi for the drink and turned away. He didn't make it far across the room before a prickle danced up the back of his neck, and he turned sharply to find Kimi right there behind him. Unnerved all over again, defensive anger welled up within him. "I'm sorry, I guess you don't do things like that," he snapped rather bitterly, not particularly wanting to show that he was upset but at a loss for how else to feel. "I'm only trying to offer you something. Anything."

The two of them appeared to reach the same conclusion about that last comment at the same time, and while Felipe looked away with heat rising in his cheeks, Kimi frowned minutely. "I'm not Michael."

"I _know_ that," Felipe responded immediately, gaze snapping back to the Finn. "That isn't the point. I'm not asking you to need me, but I don't understand why you can't...take me."

Felipe's eyes widened the moment those words left his mouth. His shoulders slumped in exasperated defeat, fingers pressing over his eyes. This time he was grateful that Kimi hadn't reacted. "Forget I came to your door," he mumbled, beginning to turn away.

A hand caught his arm as he did so and when he raised his eyes, Kimi's mouth crushed against his. But for a moment of reeling shock Felipe returned the rough kiss, at first matching Kimi's ferocity before yielding, welcoming the foreign taste and the graze and nip of teeth. The Finn may not have been willing to verbalise his anger and pain, but the way fingers gripped his waist hard enough to bruise as they stumbled back to press against the nearby dressing cabinet screamed louder than Kimi ever could. Felipe shuddered in his hands.

Kimi broke away suddenly, those hands still keeping his team mate close, a husky growl passing his lips that danced down Felipe's spine. Very much aware that Kimi was still holding onto him, he seized the moment, took a breath and caught that gaze before it had a chance to get away. "Do you want me to stay?"

Wariness flitted through blue eyes. "Do you want to stay?"

Irritation flickered through dark eyes. "That's not an answer."

"Neither is that."

"I—" Felipe just managed to bite back the words _I asked first_ because it was just a ridiculously childish thing to say. It was as if Kimi was making up for holding him close by still trying to keep him at arms length emotionally; having said that, it may well have been unintentional, may have been Kimi being Kimi. Felipe abruptly realised that he had even less of an idea about what went on in the other man's head than before he'd come here, something he hadn't thought possible.

He raised his hand from Kimi's shoulder, feeling the urge to touch, to caress, to make some kind of intimate contact and hold onto the threads of a connection they might have just established. He stopped just short of ghosting his thumb along Kimi's jawline when the other man's gaze slid away. Again.

Kimi's arms relaxed, Felipe's eventually followed suit. They stood, facing one another but not actually making eye contact, for a few quiet moments, Felipe more aware of the edge of the cabinet pressing into his back than anything else. He pushed away from it and walked to the door, what he had intended to do before that astounding kiss, now feeling decidedly light headed. A knot had settled in his stomach; he wasn't sure if it was from nerves, frustration or anguish, but it was there and it, along with the taste of vodka on his tongue and the phantom sensation of fingers digging into his hips, probably wasn't going to go away for a while. When his hand reached the door handle, Kimi spoke up.

"It's not my problem if you're not fast enough."

Felipe raised his head and looked over his shoulder at his team mate. For the first time that night, Kimi didn't sound detached; there was even the beginnings of a smirk playing around his lips.

Admitting defeat was not something that came easily to Felipe, but in this situation, with this infuriating, bewildering, laconic team mate, he made an exception. He didn't fucking understand Kimi Räikkönen at all, and on tonight's evidence, he probably never would. But as long as they didn't hate each other, perhaps that was enough. Defiance lit Felipe's eyes as he turned the handle.

"Likewise."


End file.
